TheRetroArcade
Veteran
Posts: 13,360
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
Warhammer Survivors won't be leaving my Steam Deck for a long, long time.
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What is it A Warhammer-themed bullet heaven built on top of Vampire SurvivorsRelease date November 10, 2026Expect to pay £5.75/$7.19Publisher Auroch DigitalDeveloper Auroch DigitalReviewed on Steam Deck (LCD)Steam Deck VerifiedLink Steam
Warhammer Survivors is deadly, and putting it on my Steam Deck was a terrible mistake. Every night it's the same thing: "I'll just play for 25 minutes and then go to sleep." And then it's 4 am and I'm bargaining with myself: "If I unlock one more weapon evolution then I'll go to bed." I'll never sleep. Too many nurglings still need to die.
I knew what I was getting into, of course. Vampire Survivors has the same effect (and Deep Rock Survivor, and Megabonk), and while Warhammer Survivors is more than a straightforward spin-off with a grimdark skin, it still hits a lot of the same notes.
The loop is just too delicious. If you're not au fait with bullet heavens and are just here for the Warhammer stuff, here's the deal: you pick a character with a predefined weapon and trait, and must survive for 25 minutes while increasingly intense hordes of enemies try to kill you, and then a boss will appear and one-shot you.
The loop is just too delicious.
As you fend off the hordes, you'll enhance your weapons and gain access to new ones, along with passives that augment your arsenal. You'll start to think, "I've got a great combo going here, the boss is toast!" And then you die. Don't worry, you'll figure out how to kill each stage's boss eventually, but until then you are absolutely meant to fail.
See, with each death comes new opportunities—unless you've had a particularly bad run. Any gold you've acquired can be spent on beefing up your entire roster of heroes, or you can splash out on a new hero. Maybe you found them in the level and rescued them, or maybe you completed a challenge. And when you unlock a new hero, you're getting their weapon as well, which means new synergies and ways to fight.
So you jump back in with a new hero. Once you complete their bespoke weapon challenge, you'll unlock that weapon for every character. Perhaps you'll also complete a bunch of other challenges along the way, netting you new items that you can pick up mid-fight—heals, buffs, temporary weapons. You're getting stronger and your armoury is growing larger.
Now you're playing as a literal tank that can run over enemies, and you've figured out how to evolve your weapons with specific passives. The little fireballs you were spitting out have become a huge plume of fire that melts everything in front of you. Your weak little aura is now a massive, screen-filling AoE that burns everything within it. Nothing can stop you. The boss appears and immediately kills you. Back to the drawing board.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
It's easy to brush off failure when you're constantly given new toys to play with, and new stages to use them in. And this is why you're going to forget how to sleep.
Developer Auroch Digital likely could have gotten away with simply replicating Vampire Survivors but with Warhammer-themed characters, stages and weapons. While the genre has evolved quite a bit since Poncle birthed it, the OG remains an utter delight—a pure dopamine hit. Sticking tanks, Space Marines, hordes of orks and a reliable chainsword in there sounds like a good time.
But the Boltgun developer has created something that in many ways feels like a sequel, with enough refinements, tweaks and big swings to thwart any complaints that it's just retreading old ground. And, I should add, it's ridiculously cheap. $8 for something you could easily put 50 hours into without realising? The Empero...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
PC Gamer's got your back
Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.
What is it A Warhammer-themed bullet heaven built on top of Vampire SurvivorsRelease date November 10, 2026Expect to pay £5.75/$7.19Publisher Auroch DigitalDeveloper Auroch DigitalReviewed on Steam Deck (LCD)Steam Deck VerifiedLink Steam
Warhammer Survivors is deadly, and putting it on my Steam Deck was a terrible mistake. Every night it's the same thing: "I'll just play for 25 minutes and then go to sleep." And then it's 4 am and I'm bargaining with myself: "If I unlock one more weapon evolution then I'll go to bed." I'll never sleep. Too many nurglings still need to die.
I knew what I was getting into, of course. Vampire Survivors has the same effect (and Deep Rock Survivor, and Megabonk), and while Warhammer Survivors is more than a straightforward spin-off with a grimdark skin, it still hits a lot of the same notes.
The loop is just too delicious. If you're not au fait with bullet heavens and are just here for the Warhammer stuff, here's the deal: you pick a character with a predefined weapon and trait, and must survive for 25 minutes while increasingly intense hordes of enemies try to kill you, and then a boss will appear and one-shot you.
The loop is just too delicious.
As you fend off the hordes, you'll enhance your weapons and gain access to new ones, along with passives that augment your arsenal. You'll start to think, "I've got a great combo going here, the boss is toast!" And then you die. Don't worry, you'll figure out how to kill each stage's boss eventually, but until then you are absolutely meant to fail.
See, with each death comes new opportunities—unless you've had a particularly bad run. Any gold you've acquired can be spent on beefing up your entire roster of heroes, or you can splash out on a new hero. Maybe you found them in the level and rescued them, or maybe you completed a challenge. And when you unlock a new hero, you're getting their weapon as well, which means new synergies and ways to fight.
So you jump back in with a new hero. Once you complete their bespoke weapon challenge, you'll unlock that weapon for every character. Perhaps you'll also complete a bunch of other challenges along the way, netting you new items that you can pick up mid-fight—heals, buffs, temporary weapons. You're getting stronger and your armoury is growing larger.
Now you're playing as a literal tank that can run over enemies, and you've figured out how to evolve your weapons with specific passives. The little fireballs you were spitting out have become a huge plume of fire that melts everything in front of you. Your weak little aura is now a massive, screen-filling AoE that burns everything within it. Nothing can stop you. The boss appears and immediately kills you. Back to the drawing board.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
It's easy to brush off failure when you're constantly given new toys to play with, and new stages to use them in. And this is why you're going to forget how to sleep.
Developer Auroch Digital likely could have gotten away with simply replicating Vampire Survivors but with Warhammer-themed characters, stages and weapons. While the genre has evolved quite a bit since Poncle birthed it, the OG remains an utter delight—a pure dopamine hit. Sticking tanks, Space Marines, hordes of orks and a reliable chainsword in there sounds like a good time.
But the Boltgun developer has created something that in many ways feels like a sequel, with enough refinements, tweaks and big swings to thwart any complaints that it's just retreading old ground. And, I should add, it's ridiculously cheap. $8 for something you could easily put 50 hours into without realising? The Empero...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?